AND THE RENO BEAT GOES ON ... AND ON

I figured it was time for an update on our little office / back room project, but prepare yourself for the most unexciting update ever.

Last I mentioned it, the drywall was up and the ceilings were painted and ready to be installed. That was ages ago. At least it seems like it. I think it was about two weeks ago. Since then, the ceiling and crown molding went up (they did a great job on that) and I got to painting.

As they say, it gets worse before it gets better.

The wainscoting in that room suffers from the same problem as the rest of the paneling in the house: it was painted over shiny poly, shellac or varnish without being sanded or primed. That means it's a pain to paint it if you want to do it right.

I opted for doing it mostly right and gave it all a really good sanding, but I didn't necessarily get all the way down to wood. After that I cleaned it and caulked all the gaps, which are plentiful in that old paneling. Then I primed with the same Zinnser BIN primer I used on the ceiling planks, and following up with Benjamin Moore Aura in satin. I used Mascarpone, which is the white we have in most of the house. Even though I gave it two coats, it's looking a little thin in some areas so I think I'll need to do a third coat.


Before the ceilings, crown and trim were installed, we painted the walls (it's so much faster when you don't have to cut in around the ceiling or door trim). I'll be honest, when I asked you all for your opinion on what color I should paint that room, I was leaning heavily toward something in the aqua family. But the the voters were very much in favor of a navy-ish color and a few people commented or wrote me practically begging me not to do the aqua. Well, you guys swayed me.

You can see more of the teal color in it here.

We ended up going with BM Summer Nights, which is a deep navy that leans toward teal in some lights. I liked the idea of a very tealish-navy as that picks up a color from the Chaing mai dragon fabric on the chairs. I'll also be completely honest and admit that the name of the color helped convince me to go that dark. I hate to say it, but I am absolutely influenced by paint color names. It's probably not at all good design, but it's the way my brain works.

We were able to crank out two coats of wall paint (I favor matte paint for walls) quickly and it looked great until they came to install the ceilings and put a bunch of dings in it that I had to go back and patch. I still haven't fixed the paint and I think I'll probably end up just doing an entire third coat so I don't have noticeable touchup areas.

I've filled all the holes in the trim, but I still need to paint it all, plus the two closet doors. I was on such a roll with painting and things were going so great but somewhere along the line I lost steam and I'm having a really hard time getting going again. Now it's to the point where I just need to crank it out. It doesn't help that we have no light in that room right now so if I work at night it's by shop light.

The sad fact about this project is that it was supposed to be done two weeks ago. A few things took a little longer than they should. The contractor left for a week for another project, putting a pause on the whole thing. But the big hangup has been the floors. I talked a little about this on Facebook, but allow me to bring you up to speed.

When they were finished with the drywall but hadn't yet done the ceilings or trim, the room was in a horrible state. It was absolutely covered in dust and dirt and there were holes in the floor covering they had put down to protect the wood floors. Drywall compound was everywhere (I was not impressed with the drywaller who was really, really messy; others I've worked with in the past have always worked very "clean"), including caked on our floors through the holes. We spent an entire day ripping up the red rosin paper they put down and cleaning up. In fact we blew up our shop vac and had to get another one. Then we had to scrape all of that drywall compound off. And when we lifted the paper (I wanted to clean the floor and get new paper down for painting and to make sure we weren't grinding a bunch of dirt in), we discovered that the dye in the red rosin paper had stained the floors in the area where the paper had gotten wet.

Three large areas of pink streaks like this covered our floor when the dye from red rosin paper stained the wood.

Our beautiful light floors (which were actually in great shape in that underused room, save for a bit of sunfade around the area rug) looked like a kid had gone to town with a pink highlighter. I'll spare you the details of dealing with this, but basically the contractor had never heard of this (I've since found out this is fairly common knowledge that red rosin paper absolutely cannot get wet), half accused us of doing something wrong and then agreed that it was his responsibility after we all met with the flooring guy, he filed an insurance claim, I had to deal with his insurance company and now it all seems to be handled and we'll be reimbursed the cost of refinishing the floor in that room.

The result was fine but in the meantime it has completely taken the wind out of my sails for this project. Everything was put on hold while we waited for a resolution on the floors and I used that and an excuse for my painting procrastination.

So that's where it is. Totally not finished. But here's a peek of a little something that's going in that room.

In other news, we've had to add an interesting detail to our stairs. What do you think?

In case you can't quite tell, that's plastic lattice zip-tied to the balusters. It's not there because it's stylish, that's for sure. Our geriatric cat Desdemona seems to be completely blind now and a couple weeks ago she walked between two balusters right off the edge of the second floor. She was OK (she's taken the same fall at least three other times that we know of), but we didn't want it to happen again, so scoured Home Depot for a quick solution and came up with an expensive sheet of vinyl lattice. We just cut it to the length and width we needed and used a handful of zip ties to hold it on. So far it's working great and poor Desi's biggest issue has been accidentally stepping in her food dish.

Like I said ... it's an unexciting update, but now you're filled in.

FRIDAY FINDS & A RENOVATION UPDATE

It's the first  Friday Finds of the year, but first a quick update on what's happening in the back room / office (I really need to just figure out a name for that room and call it that once and for all). Drywall is up, including on the ceiling, which was a surprise to me. Since we're putting wood planks up, and since we discovered a stained plywood ceiling up there, I figured the planks would go right on top of that. But apparently there has to be a fire barrier and I guess drywall fits that bill.

They are also fixing the damaged drywall around our chimney so the living room has been rearranged and full of ladders all week. All of that gives the house a very "under renovation" feel that seems to be bringing some issues to the surface. I'm starting to think that Mr. Much More Patient has PTSD from our big renovation because he can't wait for this to be over and really this is small potatoes compared to what we've done in the past.

What I know for sure is that it will all be worth in the end. It always is. If you want to see more as this progresses, follow me on Instagram, where I'm pretty much putting up at least one picture a day that shows what's happening.

That's what's happening in my house ... here's some things happening in places that are presumably much less dusty.

This story from Erin from Floret Flower Farm (the gardening blogosphere's latest, greatest success story) about how she realized that SHE was her own brand is fascinating and it spurred all kinds of ideas for things we should probably be doing differently at work (and a few things for the blog).

Great advice on seed shopping. Add it to the list of things I need to get going on.

One of the things I love about the end is everyone's top posts lists and years in review. Taking a look at what is popular on Margaret Roach's blog is sort of a bellweather of what's happening in the gardening world.

I also liked Hooked on Houses top renovations of the year.

And Grow a Good Life had a great year-end round up as well.

You're going to be hearing a lot from me on seed starting soon, so brush up on your grow light knowledge here.

The weekend plans at my house depend entirely on how far things have gotten by the end of the day. With luck I'll be painting the wood planks for the ceiling and maybe a door or two. What are you up to?

RENOVATION ... AGAIN

Surprise! I've been talking about all kinds of projects, namely a bit of DIY in the basement and redoing the downstairs bathroom, but here we are doing a project (and by we, I mean the people we hired to do it) that I don't think I've even mentioned. This is how stuff goes around here. And this is what I came home to last night.

Consider this the penultimate step in ridding our house of the horrific wall texture that some former owner thought was a good idea. When we bought the house, every room other than the kitchen was covered in this thickly applied drywall compound applied in a fashion similar to one of those really fluffy cakes. Most of it went away when we did our big renovation and discovered that we had to shore up the living room ceiling (the weight of all that drywall compound contributed to a serious sag). I was more than happy to have to redo the drywall.

Then two years ago I did the hallway myself, mostly with a belt sander. For the record, even though it turned out pretty well, this was a really bad idea (I think I still cough up drywall dust).

The back room, aka the office, aka the original master bedroom is the worst room in the house as far as the texture goes. Our theory is that they started in that room and then "refined" their technique, because the swoops are really close together and it's all over the ceiling. There is a distinctive lemon meringue pie vibe in that room.

Here's what it looked like before this all started.

Things you should note about this photo: 1. The horrible wall texture; 2. The boob light; 3. The paint color samples on the wall, because at some point I thought paint was going to fix the problem in there. The sliding doors (which honestly I don't love but true French doors just aren't practical in our climate) lead out to the deck. 

One surprise—there are ALWAYS surprises when you start ripping open walls, especially in an older house—was that the ceiling underneath that drywall is stained plywood sheets, clearly the original ceiling. They are the same dark stain that lurks under all of the wainscoting in the house (and that was covered up with a not-very-good paint job). I can't imagine how dark this house must have been before someone painted everything and, I think, put in bigger windows. Frankly, even though that renovation was done in a rather sketchy way, I'm so glad someone did it because I'm not sure I would have seen past the darkness if I had looked at this house in its original state. 

So we're having that room re-drywalled from the original wainscoting up. The ceiling will be replaced with painted wood planks like in the kitchen. All this came about because at some point we had a leak on the chimney and the ceiling drywall was damaged. We feel fairly confident that we've fixed the leak so it was time to fix the drywall and it only made sense to have both projects done at once.

One thing I learned with our big renovation (and subsequent kitchen redo) was that if you can avoid getting your head set on an end date, you'll be a happier person, so I haven't asked about one nor really thought about it much. I will eventually, and I'm happy to see that they are working quickly, but for now I don't want to stress about it.

I'm doing all of the painting in this room and even though it's a small room, there's a lot of fiddly painting to be done. The wainscoting, which matches that in the living room and hallway, needs to be sanded, primed and painted because when the previous owners painted, they didn't sand or prime anything so if you so much as nudge the woodwork, the paint chips off. If I can paint really fast, the wood ceilings will be painted before installation and then just touched up after, which is far preferable to doing it after (as I found when I thought I crippled myself permanently painting the kitchen ceiling). I can't hold up the installation though, so they'll go up when the guys are ready to put them up regardless of how far I get. There's also a ton of trim—chair rail, baseboard plus trim around four doors and a window—and three doors plus the new walls.

This is a bright, sunny room that functions as an office, sitting room and walkway during the summer when we're on the deck and want to take a more direct route to the bathroom or living room. It can have a nautical bent, sort of. This is the room where we hang two huge nautical charts (one of the Great Lakes, which was was the first Christmas gift I gave Mr. Much More Patient many years ago, and that we still refer to on occasion, and another of Lake Michigan that details the course the boat Mr. Much More Patient was sailing on when it won a very big sailboat race), so it has a little bit of a nautical bent.

The wainscoting, trim and wood ceilings will all be painted the same warm white that is in much of the rest of the house: Benjamin Moore Mascarpone. I like to keep the same white going where possible for simplicity's sake not to mention continuity. The upstairs bathroom and kitchen are both Cloud White because I needed something just a touch whiter and the downstairs bathroom will be White Heron because I am attempting to match the subway tile color as closely as possible.

So, would you like to weigh in on a wall color choice in this room? I have it narrowed down to a dark navy (shocker) or something in the light blue / turquoise / aqua area. Unless one of you has a completely different idea that I haven't thought of.

Here's a navy combination (using BM North Sea). The mock-up is just a generic room from the Benjamin Moore website, not the actual office.

And here's something a little lighter (and perhaps less serious) with Benjamin Moore Galt Blue (from their Williamsburg collection, which has some great colors in it).

Thanks for weighing on the color choice! I'll keep you updated on the progress back there.